


you smell like butter and bright lights

by meowy_times



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Gen, Haikyuu Angst Week 2020, How Do I Tag, Insecurity, M/M, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowy_times/pseuds/meowy_times
Summary: Kei didn’t think the world could crash down around him the way it did: losing his best friend and falling apart.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020





	you smell like butter and bright lights

**Author's Note:**

> hiii! ...so yesterday i had myself a good afternoon, realizing all my insecurities and crying a little bit. and then i remembered it was hq angst week and was like “huhhh what are the prompts?” so i looked it up and was like “nah but-“ and then i sorta wrote my bad relationship from like a year ago into a fic plus some bits because obviously, so join on this mess where i project myself onto tsukishima maybe a little bit and use thesaurus.com and way too many metaphors because john green (whom i hate, sorry not sorry) said that’s how people express and deal with pain :D
> 
> jsjsjjssj ok so  
> 1\. song that reminds me of this shit, it’s great, my ‘relationship’ was not:  i should probably go to bed   
> 2\. beta!! she’s super cool,  here!! 

Sunlight streams in through the windows, warming Kei’s kitchen and proving that they didn’t need to use the kitchen lights. He smiles, a rare sight he knows, for anyone who is not Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is laughing in the early morning, stirring a large bowl of batter for banana pancakes. Kei doesn’t remember when it became a habit to invite Yamaguchi over so early to eat Saturday breakfasts with him. Yamaguchi is wearing a green apron, too old and too small now that he’s caught up to Kei in height. Kei doesn’t mind. It looks cute, his brain supplies, as Yamaguchi puts the bowl down and does a little dance. 

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi grins at him. “I didn’t know you were awake!” 

Kei hums and leans against the doorframe. It’s funny; Kei is usually the first one awake and Yamaguchi loves to sleep in. What was the special occasion? Yamaguchi’s grin fades into a smile that doesn’t quite light up his face, but warms Kei’s heart nonetheless. 

“You can flip the pancakes,” Yamaguchi says. He turns on the stove and rummages around for a pan. Kei wonders when Yamaguchi started knowing his kitchen better than he did. 

Yamaguchi places the pan on the stove, causing it to make a sizzling sound. Kei walks over and gets in front of the stove, grabbing a ladle and then pouring blobs of batter into the pan. 

Yamaguchi moves to set the table, just for the two of them. Kei flips the first few pancakes into a plate. He hears Yamaguchi open the refrigerator and sees him pull out a can of whipped cream. 

Kei places the plate of pancakes in between them and they sit opposite of each other. It’s their usual orientation, Yamaguchi’s seat by the sink and Kei’s facing away from the living room. He watches as Yamaguchi pops open the can of whipped cream and proceeds to spray an unhealthy amount on top of the first pancake. Then, he grabs strawberries, sliced in half, and sticks them into his mountain of whipped cream. 

Kei rolls his eyes, “I think that’s too much whipped cream Yamaguchi.” 

“And I think that’s too many strawberries Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says pointedly, eyeing Kei’s arrangement of fruit. Kei has a habit of making his strawberry slices fan out like a flower. This leads to him using way too many on a single pancake and usually running out by the third one. 

“Whatever,” Kei says, cutting into his pancakes and watching Yamaguchi nosedive into the whipped cream. He takes a bite and rolls his eyes as Yamaguchi comes up with cream all over his face. He swears that Yamaguchi doesn’t even like to eat pancakes; he just likes to waste all of the whipped cream so that Kei has to buy a new can every week. Yamaguchi manages to lick his face mostly clean and wipe the rest off with a napkin. He giggles when Kei points to his nose, where a spot of whipped cream is still left over. Kei smiles, just a little, as Yamaguchi goofs off and tries to lick his nose, making funny faces along the way. Eventually he gives in and uses a regular napkin to wipe it off. He beams and Kei pretends to look away, suddenly finding the dust particles, highlighted in the sunlight, interesting. 

Kei realizes he’s in love. In that moment, where Yamaguchi is laughing and smiling and Kei is pretending to study dust particles, Kei realizes he’s in love. He thinks it’s just like a switch, that flicks on and he never wants to turn off. 

That was the last feeling of normalcy, before their world was thrown in a blender. 

It was less a blender and more a hurricane, a storm. They stepped out and got sucked into the salty ocean water, swallowing and shouting and choking, before everything stopped and they were thrown on islands, beat and battered and broken and miles apart. 

The comfort, Kei thinks, of warm sand under your skin after a terrible storm, is not as comforting as people make it out to be. Because sand sticks, in all the uncomfortable places and reminds him day in and day out, of what a terrible person he is. 

+

Kei didn’t choose to become friends with Yamaguchi. It had been a sequence of coincidences that probably could’ve been avoided, but were sealed in fate. Kei likes to think that this part of the story was too. That this ending was unavoidable and not entirely his fault. 

But they’re not there yet, so let him restart. 

“Yamaguchi,” Kei says, not uncaring, as they walk home. It’s late and the moon is bright above him. 

“Yeah?” Yamaguchi asks, his voice soft. Kei looks up at the sky; it’s a deep shade of navy blue, bright stars scattered across it like confetti. 

“Do you like me?” 

This is a stupid question Kei knows the answer to. It’s rhetorical, the easy answer is “yes” or “of course” or “duh”. 

“Why do you ask Tsukki?” 

Kei wasn’t expecting that. Yamaguchi’s voice is even quieter, if that’s possible, and he sounds almost a little scared. “I just wanted to know,” Kei tells him. It’s the truth. Kei wants to know if Yamaguchi honestly likes him and why he even would. 

Kei is not all that pleasant of a person, he knows he’s annoying and ornery and sometimes he admits, he’s stupid. It’s a different kind of stupidness than Hinata because Kei is  _ not  _ an idiot. But he is ignorant and he allows himself this. 

“Do you like-like me?” he asks, not looking at Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi doesn’t stop walking, doesn't answer immediately, doesn’t say anything yet.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “I think I do.” 

“Is that a bad thing?” 

“No…” Yamaguchi trails off, “It’s a- it’s an okay thing.” 

Kei looks back at the ground, at their feet, walking side by side. He’s walked by Yamaguchi for as long as he can remember. He wants to try running. 

“I like you too,” Kei says to the ground. He’s good at being blunt, and he’s not afraid to confess things that need to be confessed. But he’s afraid to make eye contact, he’s afraid to look at Yamaguchi’s face and see it falling, like that wasn’t what Yamaguchi actually meant. 

Yamaguchi forces him to look up when he slips a hand into his. They haven’t held hands since grade school and Kei had forgotten just how much of a furnace Yamaguchi’s hands were. Yamaguchi is smiling, genuine, and Kei can see the stars in his eyes. 

There are many things people compare Yamaguchi and Kei to. The stars and the moon. The spear and his shield. A master and his dog. It’s hard to tell, with the last one, who is the master and who is the dog. Hinata would say that Yamaguchi was the dog, trailing behind Kei like a leashed puppy. Kei thinks that he is the dog, Yamaguchi is the only one who can drag him around and make him  _ listen. _

So after that, they fall into something that is sort of a relationship. Kei doesn’t know what to call it, because Yamaguchi didn’t ask him out, but they say “I love you” more anyways and Kei likes it. He likes telling Yamaguchi good night and adding hearts at the end. 

+

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi calls from across the gym. “Come practice with me and Suga-san!” 

Kei looks and trots over to them. He really is like Yamaguchi’s dog, whether he likes it or not. Forming a triangle, the three of them pass to each other. It falls into a rhythm that Kei likes, bump, watch, wait, bump and repeat. Then, Daichi claps his hands and his voice echoes through the room. How Daichi does that is unknown to Kei, some magic captain ability. 

Daichi splits them up into two groups: the A team and the B team. Kei looks across the net at Yamaguchi, who smirks competitively back. Kei likes to think that Yamaguchi learned how to be snarky from him. 

There’s a clear difference between the A team and the B team. Even if you didn’t know Kurasuno, you could still probably tell; Kei stands on one side, with Hinata and Kageyama and Asahi and Tanaka and Noya. Yamaguchi stands on the other, with Daichi and Suga and Kinoshita and Narita. But Kei knows not to underestimate his opponents, and he knows especially not to underestimate Yamaguchi. 

Yachi blows the whistle, acting as their referee. Kei snaps into action. Daichi starts by aiming a serve right at Hinata, their weakest receiver, but Noya slides in front and under the ball. It floats high and Kei glances at Kageyama, who is focused and already smiling that scary smile of his. He sets it perfectly, just as Kei expected, and Hinata hits it. He hears the slam on the floor. 

Asahi serves for them next and Kei doesn’t pay attention. He’s looking forward and sees in his peripheral, that the ball sails over. Daichi receives it and Kei calculates. It will go to Suga, who is most likely to set to center, except that Hinata can get there quickly and Kei is already positioned for it. 

So Suga will set to the sides. 

Yamaguchi. 

Kei moves in front of his childhood best friend and jumps. Yamaguchi has a strong arm and there are plenty of times when Yamaguchi’s trajectory is unpredictable, but Kei doesn’t need to fully stop him. He just needs to narrow it down. He blocks Yamaguchi’s right with his long fingers, spreading his hands to make use of their full width. Yamaguchi glares at him and he smirks. It’s a trademark at this point, his smirk is what annoys people most in court. 

They win by three points. Hinata is whooping and grinning and saying incomprehensible things, as he does after any game. Yamaguchi runs up to Kei and hugs him. It’s a surprise, but not unwelcome. Yamaguchi puts his head on Kei’s shoulder and whispers, “Nice job, Tsukki.” 

+

Kei is aware that he and Yamaguchi talk more now. They already talked a lot, but this is different. They text more and later into the night and Kei laughs more, even though he already smiled whenever Yamaguchi texted him. 

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi waves at him, on what he supposes is their first date. Again, he doesn’t know what he and Yamaguchi are right now. They were friends, best friends, and something more, but not quite boyfriends. Kei doesn’t even know if Yamaguchi is gay. 

It doesn’t matter now, Kei is happy to just be with Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi makes him happy, with his bright smile and brighter eyes. Kei sits across from Yamaguchi and orders for them. The staff here know their order like the back of their hand: two large fries, one chocolate shake, one strawberry shake, and a tray of chicken nuggets. 

Yamaguchi rambles off about some new show that he’s watching. He wants Kei to watch it with him, because apparently they talk about animals a lot. Kei listens and agrees that they can go home after this and watch the show Yamaguchi wants. He watches Yamaguchi and wonders what it’d be like to kiss Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi’s skin is soft and freckled and tanned. It’s warm and Kei likes holding Yamaguchi’s hand now more than before. 

The lines blurs, Kei decides, between relationships. Sometimes it is like they’re boyfriends and sometimes it is like they’re best friends. Right now is a best friend moment, as they sink into the coach at Yamaguchi’s house and Yamaguchi turns on TV. Yamaguchi sits next to him and turns to him. They sit in comfortable silence for a while until Kei gets restless. It’s hardly been one episode but he’s bored and it’s not that the show is bad… it’s that he is selfish. This is the beginning of their ugly demise. 

+

Kei is… a nice boy. Or at least his brother says so, but he’s the only one to actually believe it. Kei doesn’t actually like himself all that much. He’s selfish. 

“Yamaguchi,” he says, pulling the shorter boy’s attention away from the screen. “I love you.” Kei struggles with the words, he doesn’t usually  _ say  _ “I love you”. He types it. Kei has noticed things in these last few months: they’re warmer with each other, they chat more often, they call a lot. But he’s noticed other things that crawl under his skin and plant their eggs and leave him insecure. 

Yamaguchi doesn’t answer in five minutes. Yamaguchi always answers in five minutes. Yamaguchi doesn’t text first. Yamaguchi used to text first. Yamaguchi’s answers are shorter and Kei has to carry those conversations. Kei doesn’t know how to carry conversations. That’s why he lets Yamaguchi do it. That’s why Kei repeats topics and retells things that Yamaguchi already knew. Kei is annoying. Kei notices the little things, the differences between an emoticon with hearts and an emoticon without sparkles and no emoticons at all. The difference behind “gn” and “good night” and Kei loses it sometimes. 

“Yamaguchi… can I kiss you?” There’s been a new tension between them and Kei doesn’t know what it is. They still see each other everyday and Yamaguchi acts like he  _ isn’t  _ annoying, but Kei can pick up on it. 

People get tired of him. 

He doesn’t know where he got this notion, maybe a long time ago, before he met Yamaguchi and kids made fun of his extensive dinosaur collection. He’d make one friend and tell them all about his dinosaurs. He could talk for hours until they left him, saying he was too obsessed and weird. So he became colder and fearful.

He’d been afraid of Yamaguchi too.

“Sure,” Yamaguchi says. He moves closer to Kei until he’s sitting in his lap. Kei tilts his head up and puts a tentative hand on Yamaguchi’s cheek. It’s soft and Kei traces his freckles. They’re like stars. “I love you too, Kei.” 

Kei’s head explodes as Yamaguchi cups his face and kisses him. It’s soft, careful, and undoubtedly Yamaguchi. 

+

Kei stares at his phone screen. Nothing pops up and no notifications ding to the top. Kei misses it. He doesn’t know what happened, Yamaguchi drifted away from him slowly, taking longer to clean up, not waiting for him in the mornings. It hurts. He’s said sorry a million times, all through text because Kei can’t face Yamaguchi right now. 

It’s his fault. He did it again, he scared them, he ruined it. He lost Yamaguchi. 

Yamaguchi was never exactly his to begin with. They weren’t dating, all they’d done was confess their crushes four months ago. Kei had been too weak to ask what it meant, if they were boyfriends or not. 

_ i need to talk to you _

Oh. Fuck fuck fuck. Kei stares at the message and almost cries. There are two outcomes to this kind of ominous message: Yamaguchi asks him out and they actually date, or, the most likely at this point, Yamaguchi tells him he’s tired and leaves him alone. 

_ i’m not mad at you _

Fuck fuck fuck. Fucking Yamaguchi is mad. He has to be. That’s the only response to how Kei has acted these last few weeks. He’s been so fucking annoying and cringy and Kei can’t even read up the conversation anymore. He’s ruined it. 

_ where? _

_ by the gym? _

_ ok _

Kei puts the phone done and slumps into his desk. This is going to be bad. 

+

Kei walks to school alone now. He walks home alone too. He gets to morning practice and he’s pretty sure that everyone knows. They’re all looking at him. Judging him. They always take Yamaguchi’s side, because he’s nicer… he’s deliberately nice and Kei loves him. 

How did this happen? How did Kei fuck up so badly? 

Class passes slowly and Kei wants to leave. He wants to go home and let the ocean swallow him as he chokes on tears. But he can’t, his mother doesn’t know anything. She just assumed that Yamaguchi hadn’t been coming over recently because Kei had been going to see Yamaguchi. She thinks this because Kei waits at the playground, for just long enough before it gets cold, to fool her. He hasn’t  _ seen  _ Yamaguchi in weeks. 

In class, Kei keeps glancing at Yamaguchi across the room. He’s beautiful, the sunlight pouring through the window and onto him, highlighting his freckles. 

The deep feeling of dread in his stomach doesn’t subside when the lunch bell rings. If anything it multiplies. They haven’t been eating lunch together either. Yamaguchi eats with Hinata and Kageyama and Kei doesn’t eat. 

“I don’t think… I like you anymore.” 

Kei would cry but he’s too tired to. He didn’t sleep last night, or the nights before, and he’s honestly questioning how he’s still standing straight. 

“Is it because-“ Kei’s voice dies. It isn’t because he’s a boy, Yamaguchi had liked him before and they both knew. 

Kei ruined it. 

“It’s just… y’know.” 

“Yeah,” Kei coughs and pushes up his glasses. He faces Yamaguchi for the first time in weeks. He looks worried. Who cares? Kei can’t  _ hear _ him anymore; the world has suddenly been muted and Kei doesn’t  _ care _ if saying this made Yamaguchi sad. 

Kei walks back with Yamaguchi in silence. There’s a tension around them and Kei feels his throat close up. He has to go to practice today… Kei is sick. Yamaguchi splits off outside of the hall to join Hinata and Kageyama and it sets in just how lonely Kei has been. 

+

Kei looks up at the sky. He doesn’t see stars. He squints, trying to find at least one, now that the Sun is gone. A bright street light glares back at him, blinding him momentarily as he walks below it. Practice was nothing short of awkward and painful, he couldn’t look at Yamaguchi, didn’t change his face out of fear that he would cry.

He can’t see the stars. First he blames it on his eyesight, that his ugly glasses are what is stopping him from seeing, even when it’s what helps him. All he sees is the moon, bright and full and blossoming. Mocking him in its fullness. All he sees is fluorescent lights, fake stars that burn from a bulb, instead of thousands of fusing atoms. 

He rips his glasses off, threatening to throw them away and smash them in on the sidewalk. He has the self control to stop. The lights only blur, turning from their pinpoint positions into a fuzzy yellow dots, rainbow colors flying off of them. Kei could just fall and cry, destroy himself in the street. He could just  _ die _ . But he doesn’t. He picks himself back up and slaps himself. This is stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. 

Yamaguchi is all he can think about.

+

The moon’s brightness is only a reflection of the Sun, Kei reminds himself. Kei reminds himself… the Sun is just a star. In Kei’s universe, he is not the Earth or Mars, he is… rather predictably the moon. In Kei’s universe, there were only two stars, meaning that there was no Earth or Mars because it couldn’t be sustained. In Kei’s universe, his stars were people. It’s odd because just about everyone would agree; Kei is not a people person. But Kei relies on people, maybe just a bit too much. His stars were people he could trust, people who wouldn’t betray him and wouldn’t leave him and didn’t lie. 

Akiteru. 

When Akiteru left his solar system, it wasn’t an easy transition. It isn’t easy to lose so much light and support all at once. Kei remembers, not his birth, but the first time Kei realized Akiteru was his star. He remembers his death. Akiteru had always been there, as an older brother with an overprotective nature, he was always there. He made Kei laugh and cry and sometimes they argued, but it was never enough to kill a star. 

And then the big thing happened. Kei had always gone to Akiteru’s games in middle school, but two weeks into high school, Akiteru told him that he was too nervous when Kei watched him play. But Kei didn’t listen, because Akiteru wasn’t Yamaguchi, and he went to a game. 

He remembers his brain going numb, momentarily shutting off, only to wake up to Yamaguchi’s younger voice saying “Shut up! We know.” He remembers Akiteru’s face, all the way across the gym with wide eyes and frozen features. Kei probably looked just like him. Kei is actually fairly easy to cry, he wonders if maybe he’s been babied too much and that’s what allows him this ability. But in this instance, Kei didn’t cry as Yamaguchi dragged him away.

Yamaguchi. 

Kei thinks about it. Their love for each other was like a flame. A star? Stars aren’t actually on fire, Kei thinks. Yamaguchi was supposed to stay with him forever, and was it so evil that he wanted to be Yamaguchi’s one and only. 

Now Kei doesn’t have Yamaguchi. Kei doesn’t have anything stars left in his universe and Kei is left in the dark. Without a star to light up the moon, the moon is just a space rock in orbit because it was too big. And Kei knows Yamaguchi doesn’t need him and never really did, at least not since they got to Kurasuno. Kei can’t cry, he won’t let himself and he hates it. 

+

Yamaguchi isn’t as easy to read as Kei is. Kei is easy to read, if you know his cues and mannerisms and his language. No one looks but Kei is infinitely easier to read than Yamaguchi ever was, because Kei is facts and certainty and a dictionary, where words were defined and sorted and simple. … Yamaguchi is like a scrapbook: with memories scattered across the page, and short paragraphs that detail their adventures, and fish stickers stuck in from when they went down to Okinawa as kids. Yamaguchi is bound at the spine with red string and staples and sometimes he is actually bound together, like a giant book that Kei cannot read anymore.

Kei is good however, at hiding his feelings in a way Yamaguchi never was. Or more, Kei is good at swallowing his feelings down and pretending they never existed, because if he acknowledged them, they would kill him. He’s not good at this. It must be a Tsukishima family trait, Kei thinks, as he falls deeper into invisible despair. It drives deep rifts into their family, making it impossible for Kei to tell them anything about Yamaguchi because Akiteru isn’t even home and he doesn’t know that his mother would think. 

So he hurts in silence. He wishes he could stop thinking about Yamaguchi and stop saying sorry because  _ it’s annoying  _ and Kei has said it too many times. Funny how the tables turn. 

In the end, Kei doesn’t ask “Was I not enough?” 

He asks, “Was I too much?”

**Author's Note:**

> alright! i don’t think i made anyone cry but now i feel like shit because it was too real and no i didn’t go into too much detail because it hurt and i suck at writing dialogue 
> 
> but you thought i was done? nononono i still have thoughts about how i did this whole fucking fucker of a thing  
> 1\. i chose tsukkiyama because if you’ve seen my profile, that’s all i write basically  
> 2\. i chose tsukishima’s prospective because one, the first scene i thought of had glasses, and two, he is actually debatably more insecure in my opinion  
> 3\. yeaaaa it’s based off my relationship with an asshole of a guy but it’s obviously not exactly like that because we aren’t childhood friends (and yamaguchi would never do that to tsukishima, at least not for long)  
> 4\. don’t be like either of them in the story pls because i’ve been hurt ig and now i’m too scared to start conversations or end them and i think it might be abandonment issues? idk i don’t wanna be forgotten  
> 5\. wow this is long, um i didn’t do a “kurotsuki” or “teruyama/yamayachi” cheating or whatever because that’s not my cup of tea but apparently putting my own suffering is
> 
> 6\. yes i am okay now, and kudos and comments will be appreciated (if you liked it ofc) :D


End file.
